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Monday, August 23, 2010

...There are no major neurological differences between the sexes, says Cordelia Fine in her book Delusions of Gender, which will be published by Icon next month. There may be slight variations in the brains of women and men, added Fine, a researcher at Melbourne University, but the wiring is soft, not hard. "It is flexible, malleable and changeable," she said.

In short, our intellects are not prisoners of our genders or our genes and those who claim otherwise are merely coating old-fashioned stereotypes with a veneer of scientific credibility. It is a case backed by Lise Eliot, an associate professor based at the Chicago Medical School. "All the mounting evidence indicates these ideas about hard-wired differences between male and female brains are wrong," she told the Observer.

"Yes, there are basic behavioural differences between the sexes, but we should note that these differences increase with age because our children's intellectual biases are being exaggerated and intensified by our gendered culture. Children don't inherit intellectual differences. They learn them. They are a result of what we expect a boy or a girl to be."

Thus boys develop improved spatial skills not because of an innate superiority but because they are expected and are encouraged to be strong at sport, which requires expertise at catching and throwing. Similarly, it is anticipated that girls will be more emotional and talkative, and so their verbal skills are emphasised by teachers and parents.

33 comments:

If you quoted that whole passage, you'd be made aware of the fact that those differences are made more because of gendered differences in the culture. Yes, if you partially quote things you will fail to see the importance of socialization, but that doesn't change the studies main finding.

Psychology is not what is considered a hard science. It's behavioral. It doesn't study the actual human brain, it studies feelings/etc.

Neurology studies the actual brain. One only has to go to this woman's website to see she's a feminist with an agenda to push. She's not a scientist.

No actual studies were done.

I know you're very eager to jump on this as a justification that you're correct, but, these are all based on her behavioral psych, not on actual neurological fact.

As I said in my secondary comment, we are animals. Animals have "gender roles". So do humans. It's not because of "patriarchy" or anything else, and all the feminism in the world won't change that. Nor will all the evolution. At our core, we're still animals, and in the animal kingdom, the sexes serve different functions.

Just because we like to dress ourselves up and drive cars doesn't make us less animals.

My apologies, Anon (is it safe to assume that you are the sole writers of all the comments here? I'm operating on that assumption.). It was a fail because of your assumption that the author was "a feminist psychologist with an agenda to push" as a means of discrediting the findings that you just can't get behind.

I rejected Anon's most recent comment, but they bring up objections about this woman's practices (suggesting she draws conclusions before she does the study and that she was only plugging a book) and that her findings are comprimised. Thoughts, Tory?

Please argue that behavioral psychology has nothing to do with any of those. You're making a pretty bold claim by saying that such an extensive field isn't science. Then everything a behavioral psychologist has ever said lacks credibility.

Also, the article talks about a book. The book itself is not an experiment, but it could cite several credible research studies. I suggest looking into those as well as other reviews to see what peer scientists have to say about it before you make a judgment of their own.

And yes, animals do have behavioral differences. However, consider the gender roles of chimpanzees and then picture early mankind in a time when physiological differences determined much more than they do now. Men, being naturally larger and stronger, took on the role of hunting and protecting while women, who gave birth and nursed babies, took on the role of mothering and maintaining the home. Is it hard to imagine that such roles are determined not by neurological differences, but by the environment we grow up in? Nothing says that the behavioral differences between genders in certain animals are not merely the result of physiological differences. But in today's society, we don't have the same influences as the caveman days. The pressure for the man to be dominant and the woman to be submissive is no longer out of necessity. Amelia says that there are in fact differences, but the point is that they do not account for gender roles in today's society. Just at least consider what I'm saying as a possibility. I'm no scientist but you (Anon) have made no case as to why you know more than anyone else either.

Anonymous- While I do not agree with you that psychological findings are not evidence in themselves, the article I cited also quotes Lise Eliot, a NEUROSCIENTIST (read: not a psychologist) who agrees with Fine's findings.

Also, I think you misread what the article was trying to say. Certainly there are some differences between the sexes that are innate, but they would be much more subtle without our gendered society and have NO EFFECT on intellect, including boys' emotional intelligence or girls' spatial intellect.

I also would be interested in what the "important hard wired differences" you cite are. Because if it is that women want to raise kids more than men or are naturally worse than men at math, those things have already been disproven.

BTW, I want to note that whatever studies you are looking at that "proved" that men and women are innately so different also had an agenda (probably a misogynist one).

Also, just because lions have a gendered society doesn't mean we should (I think that is what it means to be more highly evolved).

Please argue that behavioral psychology has nothing to do with any of those. You're making a pretty bold claim by saying that such an extensive field isn't science. Then everything a behavioral psychologist has ever said lacks credibility.

First off, I said it is not hard science.

And really, before I even go into that, first definition from your link:

"a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences."

Psychology does not fit that. It does not deal with facts and truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws.

It deals with generalities, maybes, feelings, and thoughts. Not hard laws.

Any branch of natural or physical science.

Psychology is not hard science.

If you really wish to call it science at all, it falls under the criteria "soft science".

"The hard sciences are characterized as relying on experimental, empirical, quantifiable data, relying on the scientific method, and focusing on accuracy and objectivity."

Psych doesn't fit that.

Certainly there are some differences between the sexes that are innate, but they would be much more subtle without our gendered society and have NO EFFECT on intellect, including boys' emotional intelligence or girls' spatial intellect.

Except you can't prove it without raising a child fully outside of societal influences.

And funny thing, when you do something even remotely similar (say, tribal societies that have little to no interaction with modern civilization), guess what? Gender roles happen.

And yes, shockingly, women ARE hormonally driven to reproduce in a way that men aren't.

Does feminism now disagree with the very hard science of biology, too?

Just because gender roles do happen does not mean we're genetically predisposed to fall into one slot or another. They have a root in necessity that is obsolete in most cultures of today, and therefore current conceptions of gender are nothing more than vestigial remnants of ancient family structure traditions, passed down through culture. If it WERE genetically determined, people would have a difficult time stepping outside those boundaries. However, I'm sure you've noticed many examples of both genders who have transcended just about all conceptions of what a man/woman is like. Plus there's too much gray area between such people and "regular" men and women to really be able to say that we're hardwired to be one way or another. If it were genetic, it would be a very complex and variable set of genes that determined societal aims in an individual. But in that case there would be more than two distinct roles that we'd be programmed for. Now THAT would be interesting to explore if that were true. I'm no anthropologist but I doubt it.

By the way, psychology is based on measurable data and the scientific method. Psychologists take into account data such as reaction times or the statistical extrapolation of choices based on any number of factors. I'm not going to argue whether or not it's a "hard" science--I get the feeling like that's an artificially constructed label. But if you have serious doubts I suggest you read a couple of articles from a psychology journal. You're not likely to find one for free online so a college/university library would be the best bet. Or better yet, talk to a psychologist. The article Amelia cites is not directed at a scientific audience and therefore says little of scientific procedures.

Anonymous doesn't have the faintest idea what psychology is. In my school's psychology department, researchers are slicing brains, measuring levels of hormones, proteins, etc., recording the responses of cells in vivo. . . they collect piles of "hard" data, including behavioural data that I certainly wouldn't call "soft science"--nor would many of the "hard science" biologists who collect behavioural data.

I'm not sure I'm ready to accept this particular researcher's findings on sex differences, but not based on her being a psychologist. Yes, there's quack psychology out there, just like there is quack medicine. That's not what psychology is.

Anonymous- I think what Amenhotep IV was trying to say is that you keep citing animals and humans in tribes as examples of hard-wired gender roles. But gender roles in these cultures could easily be soft-wired considering that all of these cultures are dependent on physical strength, something that women tend to have less of than men.

However, as we are moving farther and farther from a society dependent on physical strength for success are seeing gender roles broken, suggesting that they were based on society, not biology.

Also, I agree that women can push babies out of their bodies and men cannot. I do not agree that women therefore want to stay home with their children more than men do.

Anonymous- Yes, hormones assist with bonding with the infant for a short amount of time after childbirth and probably during breast feeding. However, after that it is all about emotional connection- which I will think you agree both fathers and mothers can have with their infants.

I want to note that assuming that women want to stay home with their children more than the father also hurts men. It is because of this stereotype that there is no government regulated paternity leave, meaning that fathers often don't get the chance women do to bond with their infants.

However, after that it is all about emotional connection- which I will think you agree both fathers and mothers can have with their infants.

Which in mothers is still facilitated by hormones.

I want to note that assuming that women want to stay home with their children more than the father also hurts men. It is because of this stereotype that there is no government regulated paternity leave, meaning that fathers often don't get the chance women do to bond with their infants.

Paternity leave as a concept is a joke. Unneeded, and if it ever came to a vote, I'd register just to vote against it.

Anonymous- first of all, emotional connection is only facilitated by hormones in cases where the mothers carry their babies and don't adopt or use a surrogate mother.

Even in cases where mothers do carry their own babies- so what? Are you saying that somehow fathers don't care about their children as much as mothers because they don't have as much estrogen? Bullshit.

Anonymous--if you're going to keep defending the hormone theory, I would love to see you cite something. My degree is in biology and from what I've read, hormones make only a small and initial difference that is overtaken by actual emotions. And when it isn't, you have cases of mothers who neglect or abuse their children. Unless such people are all hormone deficient (dangerously close to Hitler-ish reasoning right there), any role played by hormones in bonding is minor.

And by the way, even if it were significant, that still doesn't disprove the ORIGINAL topic of discussion: that women aren't hardwired to think differently than men. If anything, you could call the hormone theory "soft-wiring" because hormones do not determine what we think--they influence physical responses and how we may respond to what we think. The cognitive and motor functions of the brain are still free to operate at the person's desire. For example, you may feel a sudden rush while going on a roller coaster--this is a hormonal response that is designed to make you flee a scene of danger or fight any aggressors. And yet, though the hormones are working, the brain is still in ultimate control. That's why you don't see people always struggling to get free when they're on a roller coaster.

If you disagree with what I'm saying, please cite a source of information.

There was a response to your comment, Tiberius, something about hormones causing emotions, but Anonymous is being annoying and guess what? I'm a mean, mean feminist who's not letting their comments through mostly because only a portion of what they say is constructive.

That's a really vague answer anyway, and since there are so many different kinds of hormones that do different things, that comment says nothing unless it connects one or more SPECIFIC hormones with strictly female reactions.

I find this development very exciting, and completely reasonable all things considered. This is definitely consistent with college art classes; I found that there were just as many women as men in the class, and if anything, the women were more talented on average; and in my graduating year, it was a 1:1 ratio, and I don't think anyone's abilities could be boiled down to their gender or race or anything else like that.

As a trans-gendered individual, I find that this development is very reassuring. I'm not all that out, I don't have any clear plans for transitioning, and I regularly feel a strong sense of self doubt; that by compromising with life, and focusing on other things, that it somehow legitimizes me in the identity. This is generally founded on the belief that if you don't have a pathological drive on instantly changing over your identity, your appearance, your pronouns, and the letter on your driver's liscense: then you are not a real transperson, and probably just a cross dresser, or some kind of pervert.

As best as I know it, conventional psychology's understanding of trans-gendered people is pretty grounded in the idea that there is nothing in common between a male and female brain, and when given the wrong body, it goes fucking haywire. It is a convenient explanation, but one which excludes pretty much all but the really extreme people, and does a lot to keep us all marginalized and hidden, and constantly under debate in the psychological community as to if we're just crazy or really crazy.

I can tell you, that whatever it is, it isn't really learned. It has been something that has been with me all my life; and I've tried really hard to make it go away in recent history. My definition of "really hard" is about five years long, with the firm belief that being trans-gendered was some kind of freakish disorder.

So anyways; I find it comforting to know that the differences between a male and female brain are largely superficial, and therefor my problems and my pain are probably in fact real.

Aeva- Thank you so much for your response! I was actually thinking about how studies like this might be looked at by trans people, and now I have a perspective to think about. I look forward to your future comments.